Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos said on Monday the country’s largest rebel group was increasingly selling its cattle to finance South America’s longest-running insurgency as income from trafficking cocaine drops.

Standard & Poor’s downgraded the credit ratings of nine euro- zone countries, stripping France and Austria of their coveted triple-A status but not EU paymaster Germany, in a Black Friday the 13th for the troubled single currency area.

House Speaker John Boehner, hoping to spare fellow Republicans a second embarrassing defeat over payroll tax cuts, is prepared to navigate around rebellious Tea Party-aligned lawmakers to get a deal, according to congressional aides.